AI difficulty levels

In older versions of the game, the Hard AI would play at its best without cheating. Selecting a higher level would increase the performance by cheating, gaining extra resources. Since DE, the AI plays at its best at the highest possible level (extreme) without cheating. However, the AI at this level is not a challenge for players above a rating of 1200, and there is nothing higher than that.
IMO, the AI should perform like in older versions, so the current extreme level should be Hard, and above that, it should cheat a bit. This would make it more fun to play for guys above 12++ and also other AIs could face it at that level scale because developers of AIs consider the older scale.

I think you’re saying you regard the DE AI as inferior to the HD AI? DE AI is actually much stronger, even though it doesn’t cheat. I just tried the DE AI as Mayans against the HD AI as Goths, which as far as I’m aware is giving the DE AI one of the hardest possible matchups, and the DE AI easily won, the score at 40 mins was 9300 vs 4300 (both extreme AI).

I personally like that it doesn’t cheat, and would prefer it if any future extra difficulty were achieved without cheating. I feel that there’s plenty of low hanging fruit in terms of ways it could be made to play better, without resorting to making it cheat. OTOH, it’s maybe unrealistic at this stage to expect dev resource for further logic improvements, while making it cheat is very easy to do. But then if players want a greater challenge, as far as I’m aware there are AIs made by other people that do cheat, so they can just use one of those?

1 Like

Yes, the DE AI is much stronger than HD. The point is there is nothing higher than the extreme level, and for player above 12++, which is not much, isn’t a challenge. Yes, there are other AIs that cheat, and they still use the level scale from HD before were hard is their strongest level without cheating, so you cannot use the DE AI and other AIs simultaneously for comparison or TGs. If you enjoy playing with the DE AI, you could always have it in hard. Plus, the AI cannot do a few things humans can, to optimise the eco, so at the extreme level it could slowly cheat resources to emulate a 16++ player for example

this game is too old and AI is old to be any smarter than DE AI extreme. there maybe ways to optimize it but it is already damn good.

if you give AI +100 food/wood in dark age and 300 food/wood in feudal age and thats it, they will be plenty strong.

You can always artificially increase the difficulty by idling your eco for 2-3 minutes at thje start, or by playing against multiple AIs. I think 2 extreme AI is a reasonable challenge for a 1300-1400 elo player. I managed to beat them first try, but I can’t recall what my rating was at the time.

1 Like

I have done that too, but the experience is quite different from playing against a stronger human opponent. It is easy to defeat one in early ages and then you fight againt a strong imperial AI. If only one AI could slightly cheat could defend better with the army.

The experience of fighting AI will always be different from playing against any competent human players. AI makes 20-30 skirmishers in feudal almost every game, even if you don’t go archers. AI makes army composition of 10 different units. AI always sends units individually, whereas real players have several control groups. Increased resource gather rate won’t fix that.

1 Like

Except Drushing, it uses box formation.

If you attack with your starting scout, AI makes 3-5 spearman in Feudal Age. Poor AI.

1 Like

Current AI > HD AI > original AI

So you wil have the same issues with the old AI. The current extreme AI without cheating is much better then the old AI with cheating. So they are already improving the AI. It is not like the AI is made worse, because they dont cheat anymore. No, the current level of the AI is much stronger, even without cheating.

I even think Extreme AI isnt a challenge anyore for 1000 elo players. But you can always add more AIs to the enemy side. Afaik even TheViper cant beat the current AI in 1v4. Have you ever tried to play 1v2 or 1v3 against the extreme AI? This will might give you a challenge as well.

At Voobly the best AI was Barbarian. Not sure if there is already a DE version of that AI released at the workshop. I heard TheMax was working on the AI, but i dont know the status. I still would wish this was the default AI for the game. Afaik this AI do not cheat either, but it plays much better then the current DE AI. You might have a search for this AI.

1 Like

I have never said the DE AI is inferior to the older AI. This is not a complain at all. Promi has done a very good job with the AI. This is a suggestion cuz is good to have more options. I’m aware of Barbarian. There are also other AIs developed for DE in the Modes section, like The Beginner AI, which is strong too. But that one sticks to the conquerors level scale, were hard is the strongest without cheating, and then it cheats. So you cannot make them fight with each other because they run at a different difficulty scale. I’m a 145+ and I wish I could train against the Extreme AI cheating a bit for a more challenging experience. Yes, I have played against 2 of them but the experience is very different than 1vs1.